


Rogare

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Pre-Canon, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:11:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9623597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: The Temple is gone, but Chirrut's faith in the Force remains. But what does Maze believe in?This is lightly based on the official word that Baze and Chirrut were both Guardians at the Kyber Temple, but is pure speculation beyond that.Title is from the Latin root of 'rogue,' which means 'beg, ask,' appropriately enough.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yeomanrand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/gifts).



The temple was a quiet place. Aside from the soft-spoken Guardians who aided the galaxy’s pilgrims, the others spent most of their days in silence, with a an hour for conversation at meals and a little time in the early morning, when most of the work was planned. Many of the Guardians had ceased speaking altogether, having learned how to communicate without any such trouble.

Baze Malbus, though. He was the opposite of quiet. 

At mealtimes, his laughter rang through the room. In the mornings, he'd argue, tell jokes, pound men on the back. When the hours of silence returned, he ceased speaking, but there was still the jostling of his clothes, the heavy weight of his footfalls. 

Chirrut wondered if his face was as bright as his voice, if he cut such a contrast to the pale walls of the temple with his beauty as well. 

Baze _was_ beautiful. Chirrut knew that much without laying a hand on him, without asking the Force to guide his senses. The first day he came there had been whispers among the Guardians, who were not so skilled at detachment as they sometimes pretended they were. For a time it felt like every man at Kyber Temple wanted to lay claim.

Baze, though, for all his vibrancy, remained quiet about such things. If he took lovers, he did it out of range of gossip.

But Chirrut did not think he took many. Baze didn't seem the sort of man to bother hiding his pleasures.

For his part, Chirrut tried neither to avoid Baze nor seek him out. There was a very specific sort of temptation surrounding the man, and as appealing as it might feel on the surface, he and Baze both had duties to follow. Chirrut's greater loyalty was to the Force. His days were ordered, simple. He wished for no more than that.

But all that was before the Empire found them.

That was before it all ended. 

They lost many Guardians when the Temple fell and the crystals were robbed from its stronghold. The survivors scattered. Most of them lost faith.

Chirrut refused to. The Force had always yearned for balance. This was a tipping of the scales. Frightening, heartbreaking, but it would not be permanent. Eventually, the balance would return. It would not make the waiting, the struggle, any less pleasant, but it made it bearable.

At least to Chirrut.

Most of the Guardians who remained on Jedha drank, or begged on the streets, or both. Chirrut settled for life with the bowl; his blindness made him sympathetic, and it gave him cover to protect the most vulnerable people on the streets--the children, the prostitutes, his own former colleagues. It was the least he could do, after his failure at the Temple.

Baze stayed on Jedha as well. But he went to work.

Chirrut heard the stories: a mercenary, quick and sharp and as tempered as good steel. A warrior who had been at the Temple of the Whills before it was stripped bare and the Guardians turned out on the streets.

Chirrut didn't judge. But he wondered, sometimes, how Baze could have turned away from it all so easily.

The temple had been empty for more than a year when Baze dropped a handful of coins in Chirrut’s bowl. "Still have faith, old friend?"

Chirrut had been sitting with his back to the ruins of what had once been their temple. "I do not remember our being friends, Baze Malbus."

Baze shifted his weight from one foot to the other, stretching out an arm so he could better lean against the wall. "I suppose I thought of everyone at the temple as a friend."

Chirrut nodded. "Friend, then. And yes. I keep my faith. I am one with the Force; the Force is with me."

"I envy you that," he said, shaking his head. Chirrut remembered that the Guardians had said Baze’s hair was dark, and thick when uncut. "It seems...all of that, my life at the temple--it feels like a dream, now. A fairy tale."

"The Force is still here," Chirrut said. "It guides me still."

"Come," Baze said, not unkindly. "I'll buy you a meal."

"Thank you, but I'm fine here."

"Please," Baze said. "Because we weren't friends. Let me be your friend now." 

Baze was wearing different clothes, a heavy jacket and light armor, and he was carrying weapons no Guardian would ever touch.

If the Temple had still been standing--

But of course, if the Temple was standing, they wouldn't be next to a broken remnant of its wall.

"What kind of meal do you have in mind?" he asked.

 

Baze seemed gratified that Chirrut stopped at a single glass of Endorian port. Chirrut wondered if he'd fed more of their former colleagues, and found them more fond of their drink. "You're looking well for a man who sleeps on the street," he said.

"The Force provides." He'd been fortunate last night and found an empty home to sleep in that still had running water. He was glad of it now. It had been a long time since he had been so close to someone, indoors. 

He smiled to himself at the absurdity of it all. He'd been cheek-to-jowl with the other Guardians for so long; now he was accustomed to living alone, eating alone, spending hours just listening to the chatter of the crowd. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm unused to conversation, unless it's with the children." They came and talked to Chirrut often. He suspected they found his calm soothing.

"How are you keeping warm?"

He shrugged. "You grow used to it. Much as you’ve grown used to the mercenary life, I suppose."

Baze's smile was clear in his voice. "I have," he said. "But I still--it's difficult. To see the lost souls on the street."

Chirrut knew what he meant. Some of the street people were simply poor. But others were lost, in ways that Chirrut did not know how to reach. The Guardians who lost themselves in drink. The men and women who had lost everything to the Empire and were little more than shells. People who floated through the city for a day or so and disappeared again. And everywhere agents of the Empire, ready to buy and sell people like so many trinkets. The kind of men who would slap a child for raising their voice too loudly in the marketplace.

"I've heard," Baze continued. "That you've been busy."

"I've done little," he said.

"You've saved lives. Protected people. You don't have to be modest,” he said, leaning back from his chair. "There's no one here to be concerned about--I didn’t choose this place at random."

"It's not modesty," he said. "I've done little, Baze, if you saw all there was to do. All the pain that people want to pretend doesn't exist. The hunger."

"Why do you think I've done as I have?" Baze asked. "You can't fight the Empire on hope alone. You need resources."

"I wasn't--" The words sunk in. _You can't fight the Empire--_ "Is that--?"

"I've done some work," Baze said. "It's not much. Not nearly enough. But it's something. And if I had more with me--"

"Like me?"

Baze nodded, then caught himself. "Yes."

"It's all right," Chirrut said. "I know what you said."

"Come back with me," Baze said. "For tonight. We can talk."

"I wouldn't have thought you'd want to reminisce."

Baze reached out and just touched his fingers to Chirrut's. "I don't."

Chirrut had known there would be a spark there. He hadn't realized how intense the shock of it would be.

"Just an hour of your time," Baze said, "if you don't want to spend the night."

"All right," he said.

 

They didn't talk at first. Baze was unexpectedly eager, as soon as the door was closed and barred. His fingers stroked Chirrut's neck, reached into his robes as Chirrut unhooked his scabbard and belt. "I waited too long for this," he said. "You were the most handsome man at the temple."

"Even with these unseeing eyes?"

"Anyone who cared about a thing like that was a fool," Baze said. 

"Then why did you do nothing about it at the temple?"

"You belonged to the Force."

"I still do," Chirrut said. Baze’s armor was more complicated than he had expected, but his fingers were nimble enough.

Baze moaned pleasantly enough as his gear came free. "Things have changed."

Chirrut couldn't argue with that, so he tipped his head back and let Baze kiss his neck instead.

Later, in Baze's modest but comfortable bed, Chirrut asked, "was that really it? That I was too enamored of the Force?"

"It was many things," Baze said. "Don't forget I was a Guardian too. I always feared you'd be too distracting."

"I'm flattered," Chirrut said, sincerely. "But now?"

"I have no faith in the Force," Baze said. "Not after all this."

"But you still want to fight."

"The Empire--" Baze rolled onto his back and sighed. Chirrut heard his dreadlocks flop against the pillow. "I believe they exist. I believe we have to resist them. That's enough to believe in, for now.”

“You must have a few ideas.”

“I’ve met some people. They have more ideas than I. I hoped you might have a few, as well."

Chirrut reached over and tangled his fingers in Baze’s hair. "I suppose I might."

Baze smiled at the ceiling. "I saved you for last, you know."

"I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.”

"I used to watch you," Baze said, thoughtfully, almost dreamily. "In the temple, when you sparred--I'd never seen anything like it. I've still yet to see anything like it. Don't think I doubted your skills. Or your commitment. I waited for another reason.” He stroked the side of Chirrut’s face, gently, affectionately. “I waited because I wasn't sure we'd have anyone else. Because the other Guardians--the few of us who survived--all we had left was doubt. And anger. But you...I saw you there, in the marketplace, this past year. I saw your face."

"I didn't realize I was _that_ handsome," he said, chuckling.

"You had faith," Baze said. "When all of us have lost our purpose, you still believe. As long as I hadn't asked you--I had hope. That I wouldn't be alone in this."

"You're not," Chirrut said. “You won’t be.” _And I won’t be either,_ he realized, and it felt like a light kindling in his heart.

"It's a strange thing," Baze said, thoughtfully. "To find your faith rewarded. I'm going to buy us a bath in the morning, to celebrate. We deserve it." 

"I’m but a simple beggar these days. It might go to my head."

"I'm willing to risk it," Baze said, and reached for Chirrut again.


End file.
